What is a snan, and who takes it?
A snan is a bath taken as a rite, in a river or a kund at a tirtha. This page says what the tradition holds a snan to be, where it is taken at Nashik and at Trimbakeshwar, and who takes it.
स्नानsnan
a bath, taken as a rite in a river or a kund at a tirtha
Table of contents
Section I
What is a snan?
A bath, taken as a rite. स्नान snan is the word for a bath. A तीर्थ tirtha is a place of pilgrimage, and in the oldest sense a crossing place on a river. At a tirtha the snan is the bath taken in the river itself, and the body goes into the water. Tradition holds a snan at a tirtha to be an act of purification, and counts it as पुण्य punya, merit in the tradition’s own accounting.
By tradition the Nashik–Trimbakeshwar Simhastha Kumbh Mela is the great occasion for a snan in the Godavari, and a snan taken then is held to carry particular merit.
Section II
Where is a snan taken?
In the river at a tirtha, or in a kund there. A कुण्ड kund is a pool with stone sides and steps, fed by a river or a spring. At Nashik a snan is taken in the Godavari at Ramkund, a kund on the river. Ramkund sits on the घाट ghat, the steps down to the Godavari. At Trimbakeshwar a snan is taken at Kushavarta Kund. The Godavari rises on Brahmagiri, the hill above Trimbakeshwar. People say she disappears into the hill and comes out again at Kushavarta. The source of the Godavari says how she comes to the kund.
Section III
Who takes a snan?
A bath is something a person does himself. The punya of it, like the punya of any act, is earned and kept by the person who does the act.
Section IV
Is a snan one of the ancestral rites?
No. The ancestral rites are श्राद्ध shraddh, the rite for a family’s dead, together with its parts. A snan is not among them. Ramkund at Nashik is a tirtha for the ancestral rites as well as for a snan.
Section V
Explore more guides
Glossary of the ancestral rites
Tirtha, kund, ghat, punya and the other words on this page, each in Devanagari with a plain meaning.
What to carry
A short, practical list for a day at Ramkund or Kushavarta Kund, whether you are bathing, attending a rite or only watching.
What is shraddh?
The rite for a family's dead, who it is for, when it falls, what is offered, and its order as the Garuda Purana gives it.
Section VI